Reports are that Musk will be acquiring Twitter after all
Glenn Reynolds writes: “Twitter has been destructive for the left, but it has also been destructive for the nation. I hope Musk can fix the latter, at least.”
I have written about my own detestation of Twitter quite a few times. Twitter may be a cesspool, but at least let it be a cesspool that doesn’t favor the messages of the left and censor the right.
I bought last week and sold this AM. Nice profit.
I guess it’s official. After the board’s “poison pill” shenigans they’ve now unamiously approved the buyout at $54.20.
This should be interesting.
EXCELLENT, Cornhead.
It seems that Elon Musk was going to go a in at the start — his reason for rejecting the Board of Directors seat meant getting in deeper. And Musk issued a take or leave offer forcing the Board to act on it as fiduciary’s — and before the likely quarterly report this Thursday, which would have very likely undermined his generous offer’s valuation of the business.
One interesting point mentioned today is that Tesla rival carmaker GM spends $4 billion a year in advertising on Twitter.
Now, with ownership, the Tesla leader can advertise on Twitter without spending such sums, and as a private business, may accept it reject a competitors money.
My deeper point? Musk usually has a useful synergy animating nearly all of his business moves. And in all the hubub about speech, this marketing and sales angle on his EVs has gotten lost.
But it’s another smart way to position his entrepreneurial quest, too.
Great news for all free speech advocates.
I strongly suspect that the twitter board’s sudden abandonment of its poison pill stategy resulted from Gov. De Santis announcing that the State of Florida would be looking into sueing the Board for violation of its fiduciary duty. Turns out State pension funds have some investment in twitter’s stock, giving the State standing in the courts 🙂
De Santis continues to impress.
Let the wild rumpus begin!
As usual, the Babylon Bee chimes in: “As Elon Musk inches closer to a deal to purchase Twitter, Leftists on the platform are worried the eccentric billionaire will turn the platform into a place where terrible people post bad opinions and fight with each other all the time.
‘I’m worried Elon will turn Twitter into an awful place, where people say mean things. Can you imagine?!’ said Twitter user Xander Piddlewonk. ‘What if he allows people on his platform who will fight and say terrible things and call each other names and try to cancel everyone? That would be horrible! I just may have to move to Canadian Twitter. Is there a Canadian Twitter?'”
https://babylonbee.com/news/leftists-worried-elon-musk-will-turn-twitter-into-a-place-where-terrible-people-post-terrible-opinions-and-fight-with-each-other-all-the-time
Now there’s a thought: Justin Trudeau can set up and fund a Canadian version of Twitter, as his government already subsidizes approved media companies.
I don’t detest Twitter, but that may be because of how I use it. Never on an app, just web browser on a computer, with an ad blocker. I don’t recall ever seeing an ad, and no pushed content.
There are a lot of smart people posting on Twitter, with links to websites with lots of good content. Sort of like blogs and websites, most are pretty bad, either weak or offensive, but using good judgment you can find the good stuff, such as Neo for instance, LOL.
Twitter has been invaluable for my following the Z war in Ukraine, scads of great resources. Some funny people to follow, too, like David Burge, and serious ones like Lee Smith. It’s easy for me to just skip over the nasty quarrels and trite nonsense. I’m sure that using the app and registering on Twitter would really degrade the experience.
Elon, maybe consider a nice little “bookend” for Twitter. Thoughts:
NASA,
NBC,
NFL,
NPR,
NSA,
NYT…
Say, do I see a pattern?
I’ve been saying for years that we needed some GOP billionaires to buy into media like Murdoch has done with his media outlets. Well, Musk isn’t a conservative, but a libertarian is a start.
And Trump’s new social media network is beginning to operate. Devin Nunes announced it on Hannity tonight.
“When asked if Twitter, being owned by Musk, would be a competitor of TRUTH, Donald Trump explained that the new social network is a platform for his voice and his followers and that it is actually very different from Twitter. Although he clarified that all ideologies are welcome in his social network.
At the moment TRUTH Social is only available to users in the United States. According to the Market Watch site, the app had an average of 513,000 active users per day in early April, still in its beta version.”
Well, t’s a start.
If you wanted to expose academia and destroy people’s respect for university professors, what would you do different than give professors unfettered access to Twitter? Twit means to upbraid, reproach, remind of fault. Twitter is a cesspool and the nastiest rises to the surface and is most noticeable.
Red State had a full slate of posts covering the consequences of Musk’s win.
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2022/04/25/pain-and-loathing-as-twitter-holds-emergency-all-call-on-elon-musks-takeover-n555950
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/04/25/tucker-announces-return-to-twitter-today-the-tyrants-are-grieving-n556009
https://redstate.com/brandon_morse/2022/04/25/musk-freeing-twitters-prisoners-will-have-a-much-larger-effect-on-society-than-some-might-think-n555894
https://redstate.com/bradslager/2022/04/25/the-myopic-view-of-the-press-on-twitter-reveals-what-led-to-elon-musks-buyout-n556033
https://redstate.com/kiradavis/2022/04/26/shocking-lack-of-self-awareness-msnbc-host-worries-musks-twitter-could-secretly-ban-politicians-and-influence-elections-n556110
(my personal favorite)
https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2022/04/25/trump-not-coming-back-to-twitter-will-focus-on-his-own-truth-social-n556037
AND don’t drop the ball – the Social Media Gulag is bigger than just Twitter
https://redstate.com/alexparker/2022/04/26/big-tech-to-the-rescue-google-will-now-inclusively-convert-your-words-to-wokeness-n556118
Twitter banning conservatives was terrible. But twitter is a very lively place, with lots of commenters, and the platform pushes very short responses.
While in theory it allows a set of longer tweets, like I’ve seen some on the under-reported Ukraine military and how important destroying the dams was (to flood places and cause MUD!), I much prefer more intellectually meaty blog posts. While blog comments here, or at other lively blogs, is often similar to twitter.
Instapundit is almost a set of tweets – pointing to interesting stuff. Like Neo’s roundups. (I’m looking at my 30 open tabs in browser Brave, like Chrome).
Twitter (all social media) was very important early on in Covid for disseminating information about the care of Covid patients. And the prevention of infection too.
It’s where this elderly frontline provider learned of the dangers of mindlessly intubating and ventilating people based on an arbitrary oxygen saturation reading.
Alex Berenson deserves to be acknowledged for his role in getting factual information out. He was banned when he posted the truth that the injections do not prevent infection or transmission; that at best , they should be regarded as a pre illness treatment. His sin–posting that before “they” wanted it known.
(Maybe now, we’ll find out who “they” are???)
I am more than happy to assign to those decision makers there a huge role in the preventable deaths of at least a half million Americans who did NOT get early treatment as a result of its “misinformation” banning and censorship.
Had free discussion continued to occur, I have no doubt the effective early treatments we have access to would have quickly spread across the country, because people would have demanded them.
We could have been Uttar Pradesh.
I am in Elon’s camp.
We are grown ups; nobody is making anybody use Twitter. If it gets mean and nasty, we can take a time out or leave.
Let the information flow!